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NORTH KOREA SAYS IT HAS A PROGRAM ON NUCLEAR ARMS

Confronted by new American intelligence, North Korea has admitted that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear-weapons development program for the past several years, the Bush administration said tonight. Officials added that North Korea had also informed them that it has now ''nullified'' its 1994 agreement with the United States to freeze all nuclear weapons development activity.

North Korea's surprise revelation, which confronts the Bush administration with a nuclear crisis in Asia even as it threatens war with Iraq, came 12 days ago in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. A senior American diplomat, James A. Kelley, confronted his North Korean counterparts with American intelligence data suggesting a secret project was under way. At first, the North Korean officials angrily denied the allegation, according to an American official who was present.

The next day the North Koreans acknowledged the nuclear program and according to one American official said they, ''have more powerful things as well.'' American officials have interpreted that comment as an acknowledgment that North Korea possesses other weapons of mass destruction.

Administration officials refused to say tonight whether the North Koreans had acknowledged successfully producing a nuclear weapon from the project, which uses highly enriched uranium. Nor would administration officials who briefed reporters say whether they think North Korea has produced such a weapon.

The idea of a North Korean nuclear arsenal immediately alters the delicate nuclear balance in Asia and confronts the Bush administration with two simultaneous crises involving nations developing weapons of mass destruction: one in Iraq, the other on the Korean Peninsula.

''We seek a peaceful resolution to this situation,'' a senior administration official said tonight, briefing reporters as news of the North Korean program began to leak. ''No peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea.''

Yet the administration's demands on North Korea tonight were muted. ''The United States is calling on North Korea to comply with all of its commitments under the Nonproliferation Treaty and to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner,'' an American official said. There was no discussion of the consequences if that appeal was ignored, even though the announcement came only hours after President Bush issued some of his toughest and most ominous-sounding warnings yet to Iraq.

Mr. Bush said nothing about North Korea today. Instead, the State Department dealt with the issue tonight through a statement issued by Richard A. Boucher, the state department spokesman, and through briefings by midlevel officials. Mr. Boucher said Mr. Kelly and Under Secretary of State John R. Bolton had been dispatched ''to confer with friends and allies about this important issue.'' He also said, ''This is an opportunity for peace-loving nations in the region to deal, effectively, with this challenge.''

At a meeting on Tuesday of the National Security Council, Mr. Bush and his aides decided to handle the North Korean declarations through diplomatic channels, a senior official said.

Japan and South Korea, which is now in the midst of a presidential election campaign, both wanted to avoid confrontation, according to several officials.

But American officials said that there was no early indication that North Korea would admit inspectors or give up its program. One senior official characterized the North Korean attitude at the Pyongyang meeting as belligerent, rather than apologetic, even while it admitted violating the 1994 accord to freeze its nuclear weapons development.

The strongest action the administration announced tonight was the cessation of talks that could lead to economic cooperation. ''The United States was prepared to offer economic and political steps to improve the lives of the North Korean people,'' Mr. Boucher's statement said, ''provided the North were dramatically to alter its behavior across a range of issues,'' including its weapons programs, its past support for terrorism, and ''the deplorable treatment of the North Korean people.''

But in deciding on a very measured response, the White House was also implicitly recognizing the reality of how North Korea differs from Iraq. It may already have nuclear weapons, and it has a huge army and conventional weapons capable of wreaking havoc on South Korea.

Moreover, even the prospect of military action against North Korea, conducted at the same time the administration is considering an attack on Iraq, would mean that the Pentagon would be confronted by the prospect of fighting a two-front war.

Deeply impoverished, with its military might waning, North Korea has long sought nuclear capability. It pursued an aggressive nuclear weapons program in the 1980's and 1990's that resulted in a major confrontation with the Clinton administration in 1994. Officials who served at the time said they believed that the dispute nearly veered into war. At one point in 1994, President Bill Clinton ordered Stealth bombers and other forces into South Korea to deter a pre-emptive North Korean strike.

But a deal was struck, partly with the intervention of former President Jimmy Carter. The result was a 1994 agreement under which North Korea committed to halting its nuclear work, and the United States, Japan and South Korea, among others, agreed to provide the country with fuel oil and proliferation-resistant nuclear reactors to produce electric power.

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While ground has been broken on the project, the reactors have yet to be delivered, and now that agreement appears dead, officials said tonight.

Around the time that the Clinton administration negotiated the 1994 accord, the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities at Yongbyon, a program that was based on reprocessing nuclear waste into plutonium, had already produced enough material to manufacture one or two weapons.

If the North Korean assertions are true -- and administration officials assume they are -- the government of Kim Jong Il began in the mid- or late-1990's a secret, parallel program to produce weapons-grade material from highly enriched uranium. That does not require nuclear reactors, but it is a slow process that the United States may have discovered through Korean efforts to acquire centrifuges. That is also the process that the administration believes the Iraqis are undertaking.

''We have to assume that they now have the capacity to build many more weapons, and they may have already,'' said a senior official who has seen the intelligence.

It was unclear today why North Korea admitted to the weapons program. Only last month, Kim Jong Il admitted that North Korean agents had kidnapped Japanese decades earlier, and he apologized. Five of those kidnapped people returned to Japan for visits this week.

But one official who was in the room on Oct. 4 when the North Korean deputy foreign minister, Kang Sok Joo, described the existence of the nuclear program, said, ''I would not describe them as apologetic.''

The administration's decision to keep news of the North Korean admission secret for the past 12 days while it fashioned a response appears significant for several reasons. Mr. Bush and his aides have clearly decided to avoid describing the situation as a crisis that requires a military response at a time when dealing with Iraq is the No. 1 priority.

''Imagine if Saddam had done this, that he had admitted -- or bluffed -- that he has the bomb or is about to have one,'' one senior official said. ''But there's been a decision made that the system can take only so much at one time.''

The response also has much to do with the vulnerability of America's allies. Every American administration that has considered military action against North Korea has come to the same conclusion: it is virtually impossible without risking a second Korean war and the destruction of Seoul in South Korea. North Korea maintains a vast arsenal of conventional weapons and hundreds of thousands of troops.

But dealing with the problem diplomatically will be a tremendous challenge, at a time when the administration is already at odds with many of its closest allies over how to deal with Saddam Hussein.

American officials used the past dozen days to formulate a common response. At a news conference in South Korea on Thursday morning, local time, Lee Tae Sik, deputy minister for foreign affairs, urged North Korea to abide by a series of agreements it now clearly violates: the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the 1994 agreement, and a ''joint declaration'' signed with South Korea to keep the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free.

''All the issues including the North's nuclear program should be resolved through peaceful methods and by dialogue,'' Mr. Lee said.

Tonight, senior administration officials said that inside the White House, theories have sprouted about what North Korea hoped to gain from its declaration.

According to one theory, discussed widely in the Pentagon and the State Department, North Korea's leaders want to demonstrate that they cannot be bullied by the United States. ''Here they are declaring they have the stuff to make a nuke,'' one official said. ''Whether they have one, or they are bluffing, we don't know for sure. But the message is, 'Don't mess with us.' ''

Another theory holds that North Korea is seeking attention, as it has done many times before, hoping to trade its nuclear capability for economic aid. That worked in 1994, according to this theory. But it could backfire now, in a post-Sept. 11 environment.

Correction: October 18, 2002

An article yesterday about North Korea's admission that it has a nuclear weapons programs misspelled the name of the American diplomat who went to North Korea this month to confront the government with American intelligence data. He is James A. Kelly, not Kelley.

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A version of this article appears in print on October 17, 2002, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: NORTH KOREA SAYS IT HAS A PROGRAM ON NUCLEAR ARMS. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe